


[Fandom stats] Changes to Sherlock fanworks, post-S2

by toastystats (destinationtoast)



Series: Fandom Stats [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2019-09-20 00:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17011641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinationtoast/pseuds/toastystats
Summary: I tested two hypotheses (on AO3 in June 2013):H1: There was a big spike in amount of fanfic right after both S1 and S2, but then it settled down to a pretty steady state during most of the hiatus.H2: There was a big spike in amount of angsty fic after TRF aired.





	[Fandom stats] Changes to Sherlock fanworks, post-S2

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [posted on Tumblr](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/54222798700/guess-what-time-it-is-time-for-more-stats-i).

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipMXZd5ZL8TRuT5EfuLYC1CF4gajf1NwOp-66Cbp?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipNQxZ2xCuoo7dMbFmi8CbCX6sGMr6syghi6mMAY?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipOOJBxxn9DPV3AVQfPAQOI41g1T__Z1OoeaZEth?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

Guess what time it is?  Time for more stats!  I was curious how Sherlock fanfic had changed over time, both in quantity and type.  I had two hypotheses:

  * H1: There was a big spike in amount of fanfic right after both S1 and S2, but then it settled down to a pretty steady state during most of the hiatus.
  * H2: There was a big spike in amount of angsty fic after TRF.



Both of these turned out to be somewhat true, with caveats.

**Quantity of Sherlock fanfic:**

The amount of fanfic produced monthly in the Sherlock fandom has been increasing with almost every passing month (Fig 1 -- it's a bit hard to see some of the blue line, but it's true).  However, we have to adjust for the fact that the amount of fanfiction on AO3 has also been generally increasing over time (also Fig 1) -- and there are probably some predictable seasonal variations, as well (looks like there's often a bit of a bump in productivity when schools are on break, for instance).  

So, instead of just looking at the raw numbers, I calculated the proportion of new AO3 works each month that were tagged Sherlock (TV).  (Fig 2.)  From this, we can see that there is indeed a big increase in activity after the S1 BBC airing (July 2010 -- not every month is labeled, but that's where the chart starts) and the S2 BBC airing (Jan 2012).  (Some increase around the US airings, but not as drastic.)  After S1, things pretty much maintained the same level of excitement/fanfic production until S2 aired.  Then there was a huge spike that trailed off after about half a year to a new plateau (or maybe it's still decreasing, but more slowly).  S2 presumably attracted a huge number of new people to the Sherlock fanbase, but fanwork production dropped off some after the initial post-S2 frenzy (unlike after S1).

(Methodology note: to get these numbers, I searched AO3 for Date: X months ago for every month since Sherlock first aired, then recorded the number of works on all of AO3 during that month, and just within Sherlock (TV).)  

**Sherlock fanfic tagging before and after S2:**

S2 aired in Jan 2012 on BBC (and later in the US; however, from Fig 2, we see that most of the fanwork boost came from the January timeframe.   I'm going to assume most of the fanwork produced after Feb 2012 was written by people who'd seen S2.  (And that all fanwork produced before Jan 2012 was written by people who hadn't!)  Using these buckets, I looked at the prevalence of various tags within the fic.

Sure enough, the amount of angst increased substantially after S2.  But so did almost every tag I looked at (F/F and humor were the only tags/categories I examined that stayed steady or slightly decreased from pre-S2 to post-S2).  I think people have been tagging their work more extensively over time on AO3 (though I haven't tested this thoroughly -- this is a surmise from eyeballing fic tags across various eras and looking at the above trends in Sherlock).

Most of the tags made very similar increases over time (slopes of the lines about the same).  So I'd say that probably approximately represents the baseline increase in use of tags on AO3.  Angst and Fluff appear to have made more substantial increases.  My totally untested hypothesis is that TRF caused most authors to respond by either writing extremely angsty post-Reichenbach fic, or running in the opposite direction to soothe themselves with fluff.  :)  (Apparently fewer people chose to seek succor in laughter.)  But it's also possible that there were huge increases in tagging Angst and Fluff all across AO3, and this wasn't due to anything Sherlock-specific at all.  I might investigate the amount of tagging on AO3 in general in more detail at some point.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcome, but I’m in the middle of a massive fandom stats backup due to Tumblr purge, so I may be slow to respond.


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